Tracing Ancestors

February 24, 1985|by FRANK WHELAN, Sunday Call-Chronicle.

A Call-Chronicle reporter likes to tell a story about two of his genealogically-minded relatives. This Allentown husband and wife prided themselves on having an exact record of their family tree. After one night of research, the wife had made a startling discovery: Her great-great-grea t- great grandparents and her husband's great-great-great-great grandparents were the same couple.

Armed with this knowledge, she strolled into her husband's study and announced, "John, we are related."

Somewhat stunned by this abrupt departure from the evening routine, her spouse responded, "But of course we're related. We're married, aren't we?" It was only after his wife explained this obscure branch in the family tree that he was reassured of his wife's sanity.

Not all genealogists find this kind of background, but family history attracts many new adherents every year. It is the third most popular hobby - behind stamp and coin collecting. Although professional historians may sniff that the genealogy is little more then ancestor worship, they are willing to use census figures and birth and death records, which have been staples ofgenealogical research for years.

The fascination about and interest in family history stretch back for centuries. It was first common in ancient times, when the great estates needed to be passed from father to son. But this is not the only reason. St. Matthew in his New Testament Gospel begins with a long family tree that shows Christ's lineage back to King David.

The Romans set great store by their family history. The leading clans of the upper or patrician class ruled the Roman Republic firmly. The office of consul, the highest dignity the state could bestow, was traded off within a small circle of extended families for centuries. It took several bloody civil wars to break the dominance of the Roman clans.

But it was medieval Europe that raised genealogy to the level of an art form. In that complex time of great knights and haughty nobles, the idea of coats-of-arms and extended bloodlines took on a new legal significance. Primogeniture laws that governed the passing of property to the first son made proof of birth all important. Attempts by others to take this property launched feuds that lasted for centuries.

Until quite recently, the average American had little real interest in genealogy. Priding themselves on their independence from Europe's ways, most people saw the whole thing as a vestige of the past. Whatever interest there might have been in genealogy was confined to the upper classes in the South and New England. After the Civil War, when floods of immigrants began arriving in America, some groups adopted genealogy as a way to distance themselves form the newcomers. In the 1890s, the idea of breaking into "society" required some newly rich people to prove their bloodlines. During this period, genealogy acquired the reputation of being for rich old ladies seeking admission to the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Most people found all the family history they would ever need in the front of an old Bible or just by talking to great-grandpa or great grandma. Especially for those who lived in the rural West and South, more records seemed like useless government paper work. It was not until the 1890s to 1900s that most states began to keep track of births and deaths, and this was primarily done on the county level. In some states, such as Missouri, a state vital records law was passed in the 1880s, only to be repealed 10 years later. Really consistent vital records did not begin to be kept by that state until 1920. In New Jersey, on the other hand, some vital records go back to 1848.

In the late 1960s, the study of history began to shift away from just politics and toward the lives of ordinary people. As it did, interest in genealogy began to grow. Large numbers of retired people now had the leisure to pursue the hobby. This has been coupled with a growing interest in family history among various ethnic groups whose ancestors had come to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a larger sense, this change has led to what might be called the democratization of genealogy.

The pace of this democratization was accelerated by the appearance of Alex Haley's novel "Roots" and the book's television dramatization. Although Haley admitted that parts of the book were fiction, enough was fact to create what one sociologist has called the Roots phenomenon. Soon, it seemed as if everyone was doing his or her family tree or having it done.